1. Field of the Invention
The invention relates to marketing research and market research (both will be referred to herein, without loss of generality, simply as “market research”). In particular embodiments, the invention relates to market research involving websites, to market research involving the use of a Constant Sum Scale question, and to a combination of the two.
2. Related Art
Market Research Involving Websites
Companies are often uncertain of the overall usefulness and effectiveness of their websites. Companies are often uncertain of the usefulness and effectiveness of their websites for their most important, targeted customers.
Companies are often uncertain of the usefulness and effectiveness of individual website features. Companies are often uncertain of the usefulness and effectiveness of individual website features for their most important, targeted customers.
Companies lack comprehensive analytical tools and corresponding data for understanding the quality and value of website features and complete websites. Assessment and planning of website features that comprise a website are most often based on individual experiences, opinions and limited secondary research, but may also include website analytics and market research.
Companies lack evaluative, standardized measurements for comparing both individual website features and complete websites to those of other companies.
Website analytics are useful in understanding which websites and website features are being used (number of hits, page views, unique visitors, etc.), but provide no assessment of the quality of the individual website features and the complete website. Website analytics require additional study to identify a verifiable correlation between usage and quality and/or value. Without further study, website analytics require inference to postulate whether features are valuable and whether these features are meeting the needs of targeted customers.
Consultancies for websites, sometimes referred to as ‘Website Audits,’ ‘Usability Inspections,’ ‘Usability Reviews’ and/or ‘Design Reviews,’ help assess the effectiveness of website design, web page usability and website usability, but these efforts are based primarily on subjective analysis and the experience of individual consultants. Varying in quality and effectiveness, these consultancies lack a consistent, structured methodology for quantifying, analyzing and assessing current feature effectiveness, complete website effectiveness, or prospective future features.
Market research utilized to determine the value or quality (words such as ‘satisfaction’, ‘importance,’ ‘effectiveness,’ and/or ‘usefulness’ are often used to assess value/quality) of website features typically uses nominal or ordinal scales. Nominal and ordinal scale results provide information on the order of preferences. However, nominal and ordinal scale questions do not capture the magnitude of preference because it is impossible to infer interval size among response options for a question with a nominal or ordinal structure. The inability to quantify the relative position or distance between answer choices in nominal and ordinal scale questions is well documented in business and market research literature, such as Grossnickle and Raskin's Handbook of Marketing Research (McGraw-Hill, 2001), which is incorporated in relevant portion herein by reference, for its useful background information on that topic. In particular, the reader may refer to chapter 7 of this book.
Market Research Involving Constant Sum Scale
A Constant Sum Scale is described in detail by William G. Zikmund in Business Research Methods (Harcourt, Inc., 2000), which is incorporated in relevant portion herein by reference, for its useful background information on Constant Sum Scale questions. In particular, the reader may refer to chapter 14 of this book.
Market research utilizing the Constant Sum Scale is extremely limited. Constant Sum Scale questions make surveys difficult for respondents to understand and complete. Implementations even of online surveying tools involving Constant Sum Scale questions have utilized only 100 point or 100 percentage point scales. There are no known online survey options available that offer 10 point scales using numbers to add up to 10, or even other numbers.
Additionally, there are no online options available that offer visual representations (poker-type chips, ‘play’ money, etc.) of either 10 or 100 points. A significant drawback of Constant Sum Scale questions in their current form is that they require a highly educated respondent base due to the mathematical sophistication required by a survey respondent to allocate 100 points or 100 percentage points among a list of choice options.
100-point Constant Sum Scale questions, as they are conventionally implemented by companies performing online market research, create confusion and result in respondent fatigue, dropout and poor completion response rates.
One example of a state of the art use of Constant Sum Scale questions online may be found at www.questionpro.com, where there is used an approach in which a numerical calculation is performed for the user, who is required to enter numerical values corresponding to choices. Here, unfortunately for the user and surveyor alike, the user must monitor the numerical entry for each choice to ensure that the final total of all entries add up to 100 or 100 percent. As such, the numerical calculation does not sufficiently simplify the process and mathematical sophistication remains a requirement for respondents. Furthermore, such questions are not presently known to be used in relation to assessing a user interface of a communications network.